Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | N | NotiCen: Central American & Caribbean Affairs

REGION REACTS TO LEGISLATION TARGETING ADOLESCENTS.

Article Excerpt
The Honduran government's "anti-gang" legislation (see NotiCen, 2003-08-28) has provoked intense negative reaction from human rights, religious, academic, and legal sectors. The legislation enabled law-enforcement authorities to pursue a vendetta against youths whose only crime may have been to get a tattoo.

A recent wave of police crackdowns on presumed gang members, with numerous arrests, rather than produce a reduction in gang-related crime, appears to have done nothing to prevent gang members from killing eleven people in a shooting incident in San Pedro Sula. The local press characterized an attack on three buses in the Medina and Chamelecon neighborhoods of the Satelite colonia as a "declaration of war" on the part of the gangs.

Said deputy commissioner of the Policia Nacional Preventiva (PNP) Wilmer Torres Saavedra at the time of the shooting, "We can't confirm it, but we can say that the attackers had the characteristics of these people [gang members.] It is clear that they sought to do the greatest possible damage in attacking in places of heaviest use."

Two individuals boarded one of the "rapidito" buses, ordered the driver to drive off route, and, at gunpoint, robbed the passengers. They then got off the bus...